FicWad

Chapter Twenty One: Good Genes Part One

In the front room of the Potter Residence, Ginny and Harry were sitting on the floor, with a map of Albania in front of them. Elsewhere in the room, Hermione was sitting on the couch, reading a book on advanced defensive magic for the second time, it was rather interesting and over in the corner, for lack of anything better to do, Hailey found herself playing chess with Ron, losing rather badly. Ron was only slightly average and at times below at most things, but chess was one area where he excelled. While this did no one any good, it just proved that everyone had something they were good at, including Ron. The others were out for the evening or asleep.

“Okay, there are high fluctuations of dark magical energy coming from here, here, and here,” remarked Harry, as he marked the map. “All those areas are around the areas where Voldemort hid when he was banished from his body, but the problem is getting inside the country without getting detection. Albania is one of the countries that are sympathetic to Voldemort’s cause and a decent portion of his Death Eaters reside there.”

“You seem rather adamant that one of the Horcruxes are in that country,” remarked Ginny and Harry nodded his head.

“I’m sure of it, Albania has a storied history of dark magic, and thus if it would attract the attention of Voldemort enough for him to hide out there, it would also reason that he could have hid a Horcrux here,” commented Harry wisely, as he looked over the map, making sure he had looked over every variable. “Whether it’s the Cup or the mystery sixth Horcrux, I have no clue, but it should be there somewhere. Even if Voldemort attempted to mask the signature of the Horcrux, there are still a couple of things that can be done to find it.”

Ginny looked over with amusement, as Hailey once again spectacularly lost to Ron.

“You know, I think most of us know better not to play chess with Ron, heck, Dad was the only one who was able to beat him,” commented Ginny. “And not to mention that Hailey’s even more rubbish at chess than Hermione is.”

“I heard that,” said Hermione from behind her book.

“You know how Hailey is, she’s stubborn, she refuses to admit defeat, no matter what, which is actually a good thing, all things considered,” commented Harry as he went back to the map, but a second later, a knock was heard from the other side of the door. “Come in!”

The front door of the Potter Residence opened, revealing Leo, Mikey, and Raph entered, with a very ill looking Don. It appeared that the cold the turtle had been fighting as of late took a turn for the worst.

“Harry, we just found another pocket of Bishop’s mutants just outside the city, they’re attacking downtown,” commented Leo. “We were on our way to pick you up, but I think Don really needs a place to lie down and rest. We would take him back to the lair, but it’s a bit far along the way and I don’t think he can make it that far.”

“I’m fine Leo,” rasped Don weakly, but he nearly fell over, wheezing madly as sweat rolled down his face, before he collapsed to the side, as he attempted to hang on, but slumped against the wall, barely able to stand due to a sudden bout of dizziness. “Okay, maybe I am feeling a bit under the weather recently.”

“Did you draw that reaction before or after you threw up in the Battle Shell?” asked Mikey with a slight roll of his eyes, as Don collapsed on the couch, breathing heavily.

“I’ll be fine, really, just a few hours rest, and I’ll be back on my feet, just go…the city is in a danger, this latest wave in the outbreak looks even more dangerous than the rest,” breathed Don as Harry levitated a blanket over his brother, before he set it down gently on him.

“Hermione, stay here, contact us immediately if Don’s condition worsens,” muttered Harry out of the side of his mouth and Hermione nodded, before Hailey and Ginny joined him, both eager to get out for a few hours, especially Hailey who needed to vent some steam on something after being spectacularly beaten in chess numerous times. They went into the next room to get their battle armor and tranquilizer guns, before making their way out of the room, joining Leo, Raph, and Mikey, leaving Don alone in the Potter Residence with Ron and Hermione.

Moments later, the Battle Shell pulled up in downtown Manhattan and sure enough, about a dozen mutants were mindlessly tearing things apart. They appeared to be grotesque crab monsters of some sort, and their claws were doing a substantial bit of damage to everything they slammed them into. The Battle Shell skidded to the stop, as the group exited, ready for action.

“Contain them anyway you can, but do not splatter anything,” warned Leo in a serious voice as they rushed in.

“Yeah we don’t need their freako DNA splattering and creating any more genetic rejects, we already have Mikey after all,” commented Raph and Mikey glared at Raph, before the group moved in. Needless to say, the beasts gave the group their full attention, rushing forward, snapping their claws and baring yellow, deformed fangs at them, while fixing their menacing glares on them through demonic red eyes. Hailey dodged it, before she shot a net right at the beast. The net wrapped around the crab mutant, but the mutant ripped through the material and rushed over, with Harry knocking it backwards with a kick.

“The nets aren’t working,” breathed Harry, as he just barely blocked the claw shot with a solid shield charm. “Magic is barely even holding these things back.”

“It’s getting worse,” added Ginny as she swung out of the way, before she managed to shoot a stunning spell at the beat. It only enraged the crab moment, as it rushed Ginny.

“This should cool it down,” commented Harry, as he shot a tranquilizer dart right in the back of the mutant. The mutant turned its attention to Harry and another tranquilizer dart was impacted it its stomach. Moments later, it dropped to the ground, still moving slightly despite being impacted with a double dose of paralyzing potion.

On the beams of a constructed building, Mikey leapt around, just barely dodging the attacks of really large crab mutant. The mutant attempted time and time again to impale Mikey with its claws, as he just ducked and rolled. It was a constant struggle not to splatter the mutant DNA but at the point, it was necessary as the next mutation may be even more deadly and hard to put down.

“Mikey, lure him this way, I want to try something!” called Harry and Mikey nodded, before Harry removed an empty tranquilizer dart from his pocket, before he tapped it with his finger. He placed it inside the gun and aimed it, before expertly shooting it upwards. The dart impacted the crab moment in the side and a wave of magical energy flowed through the crab mutant, causing each and every one of its nerve endings to be fried. The mutant harmlessly fell to the ground.

“What was that thing Harry?” asked Leo, who just dodged an attack from the crab mutant and the monster’s arm was stuck, it attempted to pull free, but Leo loaded up the tranquilizer gun and impacted the beast in the back.

“It’s a high impact delayed magical charge that impacts all of the pain receptors at once,” explained Harry, as he joined Hailey and Ginny in blasting three nets towards one of the attackers. A triple layer of the magically modified nets just barely managed to pull the crab mutant in place enough for Mikey to knock it out with the dart. “It’s not as powerful as the Cruciatus Curse, but it’s still a rather potent pain curse, and legal, almost due to the fact it’s so obscure that it’s been lost in time since the Founders.”

“Well, we aren’t going to put these things down by playing nice,” commented Ginny, as she just barely avoided a crab mutant shot and Harry leapt up, kicking it out of the way, before Raph and Mikey both plugged the beast with tranquilizer darts, dropping it to the ground.

“Yeah, too bad you can’t whip up a few more of those things,” said Raph, as he avoided the attack of the beast.

“I don’t think I can manage more than one or two more in a day, they are draining, but we’ll keep that in mind for the future,” said Harry as he avoided another attack, before he put down his deadly mutated adversary. On the other end, Mikey did battle with a crab mutant, ducking and dodging attacks, fighting near a power generator. Quickly, Mikey dodged the attack and the crab mutant slammed against the generator. A loud crackle was heard, and at that point, a good portion of New York City was blacked out thanks to electrical charge.

The monster was pained and Raph quickly put him down with a dart to the throat. The monster stepped forward, but a combination of the slight electrical charge and the paralyzing potion had put the beast down for the count. Unfortunately, even more mutants yet stalked the group, as the entire city was engulfed in darkness. No matter what, the outbreak kept sweeping the city bit by bit.

Back at the Potter Residence, the lights went out, causing Ron to look up in absolute horror.

“Bloody hell, what was that?” demanded Ron.

“That was the power going out, Ronald,” answered Hermione calmly. “Something must have happened in the city, causing it to go out.”

“Power, you mean ekelcity?” asked Ron.

“That’s electricity,” corrected Hermione. “And yes, that’s what I meant, since this is a Muggle home, there would not lighting charms input into the wall, so the electricity would be needed to light the house.”

“If you say so, Hermione,” commented Ron in a confused tone of voice, before he turned towards the couch, to see Don moaning in absolute agony. “He doesn’t too well.”

“Don, what is it?” asked Hermione as Don clutched his leg, before he moaned in agony, as he winced, his eyes widening.

“Leg…feels like it’s on fire…wound getting worse…pain,” said Don in a slurred expression, as sweat began to roll down his cheeks, kicking the blanket off and his leg seemed to be swelling up.

“I think I better get a hold of Harry, this sounds rather serious,” said Hermione in a logical voice and Ron nodded, looking apprehensively at the turtle, as Hermione reached around. “Hang on, I think my mirror’s in the other room, let me go get it.”

Ron opened his mouth to protest, but Hermione was already quickly gone, before he could say anything. Turning his head to the turtle to the couch, Ron’s eyes widened, when he saw the mutant growing before his very eyes. Don’s eyes began to turn red, as he turned into a large, hulking turtle monster, with a spiked shell and claws, as it turned towards Ron.

“HERMIONE!” cried Ron as he finally found his voice.

“In a minute,” said Hermione from the other room.

“But…but…but…but,” stuttered Ron eyes widened as Don advanced him. Finally, Ron managed to remember that he in fact had a wand, but it did little good as the monster version of Don viciously knocked the wand from his hand. “HARRY’S BROTHER JUST TURNED INTO A LARGE HULKING BEAST!”

“What?” demanded Hermione, as she entered the room, before stopping in her tracks, as she saw Don angrily upturn the sofa, before he smashed a lamp, growling madly. “What…how could this happen…I thought it was just a…the outbreak…Harry’s got to know about this.”

“Yes, he should but first don’t you think we should get out of here,” said Ron and Hermione nodded, for once, the youngest Weasley male had a point, as Don, in a fit of mindless rage continued to smash up the living room, before he turned his attention towards Ron and Hermione, but both of them bolted out the door, as fast as they could move. Don had trouble getting through the door due to his large size, but he rectified that matter by using blunt force to smash the doorway, making it larger, before he advanced on the two, who backed off.

“Basement, now,” said Hermione, taking charge of the situation, taking her wand out. “ALOHOMORA!”

The basement door swung open, and Ron and Hermione quickly moved down the stairs. Behind her back, Hermione sealed the basement door shut, before she set a jet of ice cold water at the door. In an instant, she used a freezing charm on it. While it was not as strong as Harry’s would be due to his natural affinity to such magic because of his mystic abilities, it was still fairly decent.

“That should hold, right?” pleaded Ron hopefully, as he looked up nervously. Hermione lifted up the mirror, but a loud smashing sound echoed from outside the door, causing pieces of ice to fly everywhere, forcing Hermione to blast them away from them with her wand. Ron wisely stood back and allowed Hermione to fend off the ice attacks, as the door smashed off the hinges, with the monster mutant turtle thundering his way down the stairs.

“Unfortunately not,” commented Hermione in a grim voice, as Don’s mere footsteps caused the steps to crack beneath his feet, before Hermione raised her wand and levitated a stack of boxes in front of them, forming a barrier between the group. Quickly, Hermione removed the mirror from her pocket, looking at it. “Harry, Harry, it’s me, Hermione, I need your help, there’s a situation…”

Hermione trailed off, screaming in absolutely horror, as Don had smashed through the stack of boxes. Quickly, Hermione banished a table in the way of the rampaging beast that was once Donatello, as the mirror began to slowly cackle to life, giving Hermione a line of communication to her best friend.

Meanwhile, Harry was pinned down on the ground, a large crab mutant snapping its claws towards him. He looked on in despair as the others continued to battle on the other crab mutants. Quickly, with one hand, as he held off the claw of the opponent, Harry removed the mirror, seeing Hermione’s frantic face on the other end, as he continued to frantically attempt to push off the attacks of the crab mutant enough to put it out.

“Okay, Hermione, I’m here, make it quick, I’m kind of busy here,” breathed Harry as he just managed to push the mutant back into one that was fighting Raph and Hailey, causing both to crash to the ground, giving himself a little breathing room.

“Harry…attack…trouble…Don…Ron and I…trouble…monster,” stammered Hermione in a horrified tone of voice, as the mirror suddenly flew out of her hand, as Harry lost visual, before he quickly sprung to his feet and used his tranquilizer gun to drill the crab mutant, causing it to drop to the ground.

“Guys, we need to wrap this up, there’s a monster attack back at my house, Don, Hermione, and Ron are in trouble,” said Harry and Ginny suddenly upped the attack, managing to knock a crab mutant back, allowing Harry to hit it with a double dose of paralyzing potion and the others, realizing what Harry had said, attempted to wrap this up, if a mutant had attacked the Potter Residence, it was a rather serious matter that needed to be attended to immediately.

At a lab deep in the heart of area fifty one, a group of men were huddled around an operating table, heavily at work on an obscured figure on the table. From the shadows, Bishop stood, with a calm, cool, and collected expression on his face, watching the process, as an electrical current flowed through the figure on the table. The group of surgeons backed off, revealing a thin robotic body, with limbs only large enough to support it. In a glass case on the top was a human brain, with one shut eyeball. Slowly, the eye opened, looking at Bishop with a slightly confused and befuddled expression etched within it, as Bishop just nodded calmly.

“Welcome back to the living,” stated Bishop, before he paused and stepped closer to the robotic frame. “Doctor Stockman.”

In the basement, Hermione and Ron were backed up against the wall, as Don advanced upon them. Unfortunately, Hermione had banished everything she could find at Don and it just only bought them this month time. The monstrous mutant turtle advanced on them, discolored yellow drool splashing from the ground, as it moved forward. Quickly, several footsteps echoed down, including a loud magically created blast, which stopped Don, as Raph, Leo, Mikey, Ginny, Hailey, and Harry lead the way, their eyes widened as they saw the beast, as it turned towards the wall, leading to the sewer, before it bashed its way through, creating an exit. It disappeared through the sewers, as the three Turtles moved forward, but Harry cleared his throat, causing them to spin around to face them.

“Hermione, where’s Don?” asked Harry and Hermione, who seemed to unable to speak at the moment, pointed numbly down the tunnel and the entire group took a few seconds, before they registered what happened.

“That thing is Don, isn’t it?” asked Leo and Hermione’s nodded slowly, breathing heavily as she was slumped against the wall, absolutely mortified.

“Say what?” exclaimed Mikey. “You mean that that…but how…”

“I don’t know, I really don’t but we can’t lose him, come on, let’s go and be careful, we don’t want to hurt him,” said Harry.

“Harry, no offense, but I doubt very much you’ll have a problem,” stated Hermione, as she finally found her voice. “Be careful, he nearly tore up the entire house and if he gets out in the city…”

“I know, he seems to be larger and more vicious than the other mutants, something tells me we’re going to need some help, some heavy muscle to deal with Don,” commented Harry and Leo, catching Harry’s meaning, nodded. “Ginny and I will take to the Battle Shell, to attempt to track Don from up there, while the rest of you hit the sewers.”

The group all nodded in agreement, as they understood what needed to be done. With Don out of sight, there was hard telling where he could have gone. It was apparent that time was of the essence and they had little time to waste, if they wanted to properly track down Don, before it was too late.

Back in the lab, the robotic shell that housed the brain of one Baxter Stockman turned slightly, it’s eyeball looking at Bishop in a state of confusion, registering what he had said and not quite grasping it straight away.

“Doctor Stockman?” slurred Stockman in a confused tone of voice and in an instant, it registered completely, as what remained of the once great scientist registered what happened, recalling that for the second time he had been deprived of a body but this time, he thought he had escaped his torment, at least until he found himself waking up in another crude robotic shell. His eyeball snapped up towards Bishop, completely focusing on him. “Why?”

“I had to send a group of commandos to retrieve the most valuable item that the Earth Protection Force has, your brilliant mind, after your unauthorized sabbatical to New York City. We managed to find you, digging through the wreckage of Stocktronics, recovering your mind and thanks to the alien technology that Oroku Saki has implanted in your cerebral cortex, I manage to bring you back to life by reactivating it,” commented Bishop calmly, as he surveyed Stockman over his sunglasses. “While I can do without your personality, I do need your help and most importantly your brilliant mind, as the outbreak is getting worse every passing moment. I expect a solution soon. I need a solution, the fate of all humanity hinges on your ability to find a cure. That is why I brought you back, believe me, if I did not have a use for you, you would be left to rot, but right now, you are needed Stockman.”

Stockman swung his legs off the operating table, before taking a few steps forward. Unfortunately his new robotic limbs only allowed for the simplest of movements and thus, his limbs collapsed from underneath him. The once great scientist found himself absolutely despondent at what his fate was.

“I thought it would be over, I thought it would end, but you just had to dig me up, just after I thought the agony, the misery, the pain, after losing my second body, I embraced the end, but you just couldn’t let me die,” said Stockman in anguish, as he looked at Bishop with his lone eyeball. “Why couldn’t you let me rest in peace? Why? WHY?”

“To your feet Stockman, much work is to be done,” ordered Bishop calmly and Stockman rose to his feet, walking forward slowly and carefully, the only thing this new crude robotic shell that Bishop shoved his brain in could afford to do. He suspected that Bishop, with all of his resources, could afford something better, but he did this to torture Stockman, blaming him for the outbreak.

In his subway lair, the large mutant crocodile known as Leatherhead was analyzing samples of blood found from the bandage that Don was wearing when the outbreak had first began three months ago. It was the hope that something could be gathered from that, as Hailey, Leo, Raph, and Mikey stood in the background, before Leatherhead turned towards them, to present his findings.

“Interesting, I am detecting similar mutated chromosomes that were present in the blood samples of the outbreak mutants, currently floating in Donatello’s blood stream, it’s had a reaction to the original Utrom Mutagen components, causing the mutation of Donatello into the savage and mindless beast that you saw, with no regard or recognition of anything around him,” summarized Leatherhead, before the crocodile fixed the entire group with a puzzled stare. “The thing I’m curious about is how the outbreak mutagen could have been introduced into Donatello’s blood stream in the first place.”

The entire group shrugged, but a few seconds, something struck Leo as he recalled something, wondering exactly how they could have been so foolish not to pick on this.

“I know, when we were fighting the roach mutants when the outbreak first started, when Don suffered his injury, one of the roaches cut him,” remarked Leo and the others nodded as they slowly recalled it. “Through that cut, some of the DNA from the roach must of scrapped off and ended up in Don’s system.”

“There’s more isn’t there?” asked Hailey logically and Leatherhead nodded gravely in response.

“If these samples are anything to judge by, Donatello’s cellular structure is breaking down at an accelerated rate, he has mere days, at most,” said Leatherhead. “Without treatment, Donatello with perish.”

“No, you were working on an antidote, can’t something be done for him?” asked Raph, almost pleading.

“I’m afraid not, the antidotes are several weeks away from being perfected, at the very minimum and Donatello only has days,” said Leatherhead, and Raph angrily smashed his Sais into the wall, leaving two dents in there. Hopefully Mikey and Leo turned to Hailey, hoping that she could tell them about something that Harry, Lily, and Hermione might have found in their magical research that would help.

“No, like Leatherhead, it’s a long time before we can find a cure, even with the most advanced magical texts, nothing like this has been treated, with is more advanced than vampirism and lycanthropy,” said Hailey grimly.

“Still, we can find Don and perhaps hope that something will break, before….before…” stated Mikey but he could not bring himself to say it and Leo put his hand on his younger brother’s shoulder.

“We’ll find a way, until the end, which I hope we’ll never see,” said Leo quietly, before he leaned over towards the mirror. “Got all that Harry?”

There was an extremely lengthy pause before Harry responded.

“Yes,” responded Harry in an emotionless tone of voice.

“Any luck on finding Don yet?” asked Leo hopefully.

“No, we’re looking, we have the tracker on, but...” stated Harry before he paused, as he saw a blip on the tracker in the Battle Shell, the same tracker that Don build to track pockets of the outbreak, but now was being used to track him down. “Yes, I have something, it has to be Don, because if there was anything else near, it would have been picked up by now.”

“Great Harry, where’s he heading?” inquired Leo and Harry paused, as he got a fix on the coordinates of the tracking devices, before he responded to Leo’s inquiry.

“Straight for the lair, so perhaps there is a part of him that is still humane, deep within the monster, but his mutation might lead to sinister reasons, so I’m going to warn Master Splinter to be on his guard when I finish speaking to you,” remarked Harry. “However, I suspect it will be easy to lure him into a trap to contain him giving his current degrading intelligence, providing of course you can find something that can stick.”

“I think I might have something that could be of service on that front,” commented Leatherhead as the mutant crocodile walked over, before he pulled a tarp off of a large glass tank, with several valves inside. “Donatello and I built this containment unit, so we could hold one of the outbreak mutants for a time, in fact, it was just completed days ago. The intention was that perhaps closer study of a subject would give us a cure, but I had never imagined having to use it on Donatello.”

“I don’t think none of us have, but come on, there’s a shortcut through the next sewer tunnel, past an abandoned mine shaft, perhaps we can cut off Don before he reaches the lair,” said Leo and the others nodded, before they set out to reach Don, with his Leatherhead trailing them, carrying the containment unit over his shoulder.

They reached the cavernous tunnels and heard footsteps from the distance, that put them all on their guard. A pause and they wondered if it was Don or if something else had found its way down here.

“Uh hello, big ugly monster version of Donatello, come out and play,” said Mikey in a shaky voice and a thunderous smash was heard, as the mutated large hulking turtle beast burst its way through, its eyes narrowed at the group.

“Think he recognizes us?” asked Raph and at that moment, Don answered that question, by smashing Raph with his hand, causing him to slam shell first against the wall, before the large mutant sprung forward.

“I’m taking that as a definite no,” commented Hailey, as she just barely avoided having her skull crushed by falling rocks that Don had loosened by smashing his way through.

“Try and hold him off while Leatherhead sets up the containment unit!” yelled Leo and Raph and Mikey sprung up from either end, grabbing Don’s arms. The turtle beast growled loudly, swinging its arms and smashing the turtles against the wall, throwing them off. Leo rushed forward, swiping his katana at his mutated brother, careful not to slash him, but also backing him off. Needless to say, Don just responded by grabbing a katana in each hand and hoisting them up the ground. Leo found himself being sent halfway across the tunnel.

“This should cool him down,” muttered Hailey, as she loaded up the tranquilizer gun and shot a dart right towards Don. Don gave an angry grunt, before he smashed forward. The paralyzing potion did not slow him down, rather it seemed to anger him, giving him an incentive to move forward towards Hailey, knocking the other three Turtles to the side savagely, as he advanced forward, growling madly.

At that second, a jet of red light flew down the pathway, impacting Don right in the eyes. Don staggered backwards, growling in agony, as he shielded his eyes, in anguish, as Harry and Ginny made their way down the tunnel.

“Now Don, come this way, that’s it,” commented Harry and the beast that was Don moved forward, as he slowly regained use of his eyes. Quickly, Harry backed down the tunnel, towards the end. “That’s it, just a little bit further…NOW LEATHERHEAD!”

The large mutant croc sprung into action, jumping in front of Don, grabbing the hulking turtle beast around the head. Don attempted to struggle, grabbing Leatherhead by the wrist, attempting to snap it, but to his credit, the croc’s grip remained firm, as it swung Don over towards the open containment unit. Don flew inside and before the hulking mutant could respond, Leatherhead sealed the containment unit shut. Quickly, Leatherhead activated the valve, filling the containment unit with paralyzing gas. Don gave one more futile growl, before the monstrous mutant collapsed to the ground.

Moments later in the lair, the group, now joined by Master Splinter, watched as Don came back to his senses. The turtle was angered at his contained predicament and began to bang on the glass with its large hands. Thankfully, Harry had foreseen this outcome and thus reinforced the glass with an unbreakable charm. No matter how many times Don slammed against the glass, he remained contained, until a cure could be found, if it could be found.

“My son,” said Master Splinter in despair, as he saw the despair that his second oldest son was in.

“Don’t worry, a cure will be found, we just have to work around the clock, looking at every angle, but a breakthrough will be found and Don will be back to normal,” said Harry in a confident voice, as Ginny grabbed his hand for support, as she knew exactly how much Harry was blaming himself for the inability to find a cure to this outbreak.

“We will find a cure, we have to,” concluded Leo, as they remained in the lair, with Don’s pained and angry growls filling their ears, as the glass separated him from the outside world, for his safety and indeed the safety of others.